Almonte and District High School Converts Savings from Going Green into New Laptops and Tablets for Students

By Mark Calder

(Almonte) – Going “green” can really pay off.

Staff
and students at Almonte and District High School (ADHS) learned that
lesson recently when they accepted 160 new laptops and tablets. The
devices were paid for in part through savings gained by bypassing school
printers and sending classroom assignments, assessments and other
important documents digitally. The initiative made the portables
available to English, history, French, geography, math, intermediate and
e-learning classes and saved $15,000 last year in printing costs for
paper, ink cartridges and other supplies.

While most of the
funding for the devices came through the Upper Canada District School
Board Information Technology department, and a grant from the Elizabeth
Kelly Foundation, savings from going paperless covered a significant
portion of the cost, said ADHS Principal Ron Ferguson.

Aside from the savings, there were other reasons the school made the switch, he said.

“Aside
from the environmental reasons of saving on paper – and saving more
trees – there are pedagogical reasons,” said Ferguson. “Very few people
in the business world nowadays print things out and hand them in. Most
documents are submitted digitally and these are the kinds of skills and
practices we want our students to adopt. We want them to revise, edit
and learn to submit their work digitally because that’s what they’ll do
when they’re in the workforce.”

The savings were realized after
the school culture changed last year, said Ferguson. All printers were
removed from the classrooms and workplaces, and staff and students were
encouraged to submit assignments, assessments and other documents by
email or services such as OneDrive. The goal was to use savings to
increase student access to technology, as requested by students through
the Tell Them From Me survey.

Teachers have been trained on Microsoft applications to allow them to mark and submit documents electronically.

The
new devices were the latest step in a technological upgrade at the
school, which has also seen the expansion of digital TVs or SMART Boards
to all classrooms.

Ferguson hopes budget savings can continue
through going paperless, adding the school forecasts another $5,000 in
savings in the coming year on printing costs.